Career
He unsuccessfully fought Newbury in 1959 and 1964, before narrowly losing at Swindon in a by-election in 1969. Stoddart was a government whip from 1975 to 1978, PPC to the Housing Minister 1974-1975 and Front Bench opposition spokesman on Trade and Industry. Stoddart was raised to the peerage as a life peer on 14 September 1983 taking the title Baron Stoddart of Swindon, of Reading in the Royal County of Berkshire.
He was Chief Front Bench spokesman on energy 1983–1988 and served as Whip during the same period.
Stoddart was for many years the Chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain, which campaigns for the United Kingdom to end its membership of the European Union, a position he held from 1985 until May 2007. In 2016, he expressed his support for the upcoming European Union referendum, urging withdrawal from the European Union.
